Tag: Turkoslavia

Best Literary Translations and Baltimore

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn book, Event, Publication, Readings, TranslationLeave a comment

Three years ago, in preparation for a literary reading in support of Ukraine, I asked a Kyiv-based poet Olga Bragina for the permission to translate her poems. I’d been reading her poems on Facebook and had become a fan, and I had an idea of how she might sound in my English. Though I’d been writing in English for a couple of decades at that point, as a translator I was a newbie. But, I dared. And Olga kindly took a chance on me.

It’s very rewarding that one of my translations of her poems, first published by Consequence, has been selected to appear in Best Literary Translations 2026, an anthology coming out from Deep Vellum Press. This poem was chosen by the new U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze, and also by the series co-editors, Noh Anothai, Wendy Call, Öykü Tekten and Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún. (Wendy Call is the editor I’ve been most directly in touch with, and I’m so impressed with her energy and dedication.)

A book with a purple cover displayed on the background of mossy bricks Best Literary Translations 2026 U.S. Poet Laureate ARTHUR SZE Guest Editor Noh Anothai Wendy Call Oyku Tekten Kola Tubosun Series Co-editors

It’s a beautiful book that collects a great many powerful and unexpected voices. For a reader, it’s a thrilling ride. Please pre-order a copy from the publisher, and ask your library to order a copy. Rate and review to amplify!

Russia’s war against Ukraine continues. Most of you have probably seen the reporting about Russia’s assault on Ukraine’s electric grid, among other horrors. As creative writers, my peers and I respond to this aggression in a variety of ways from a wide range of our subjective positions. If you can be in Baltimore on March 6th this year, come to the event I describe below to hear 26 (!!) of us.

We’re calling this event Eastern European Voices for Resistance and Reinvention. Take a look at our amazing flyer, designed by Ena Selimović of Turkoslavia translation collective and journal.

Background: Blue with a black X in the lower right corner Foreground: Words in black read : Resistance + Reinvention Words in Yellow Read: Eastern European Voices March 6, 7:00-9:30 pm Library Nineteen 606 S. Ann St, Baltimore MD, 21231 Words in white read : A benefit reading for Ukraine Words in white read:This one-of-a-kind reading brings together writers from Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet countries who now make their homes across the United States. Taking place during the 2026 AWP Conference, the event celebrates a growing circle of poets, prose writers, and translators from complex, cross-cultural identities whose work is shaped by displacement and immigration, survival and resilience. Featuring Words in white read: Alina Adams, Valerie Bandura, Svetlana Binshtok, Daniel Blokh, Katie Farris, Katarzyna Jakubiak, Victoria Juharyan, Andrea Jurjevic, Ilya Kaminsky, Julia Kolchinsky, Maria Kuznetsova, Ellen Litman, Olga Livshin, olga mikolaivna, Asya Partan, Irina Reyn, Ena Selimović, Lucy Silbaugh, Lana Spendl, Alina Stefanescu, Natalya Sukhonos, Vlada Teper, Katherine E. Young, Tatsiana Zamirovskaya, Olga Zilberbourg, and Lena Zycinsky.

For more details, take a look at our Eventbrite page. If you’re able to attend, please do register. We expect this event to sell out. Please bring friends and share with people you know in Baltimore and Washington, DC area. And whether or not you can make it, donate to Ukraine TrustChain or your favorite organizations that support Ukraine.

Meet me in Washington, DC; my parents’ novel; and more good things

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Event, Newsletter, prize, review, Wonderful BooksLeave a comment

I’m heading to the East Coast for a conference next week, and am using an opportunity to present my work and (re)connect with writers and readers in Washington, DC area. On December 16 at 6 pm, come to “A Literary Lagniappe,” a reading and open mic by friends of Bergstrom Books, a foreign-language books purveyor in Kensingon, MD.

This event, hosted by a nearby Kensington Row Bookshop (3786 Howard Ave, Kensington, MD), will have a Central and East European focus, and will include original work, translation, and music. As you can tell from the flyer, we’re planning to keep it festive! Please register on Eventbrite and share with friends.

Translator and poet Katherine E. Young might read from her translations of Azerbaijani writer Akram Aylisli. Ena Selimović, Yugoslav-born translator and a co-founder of one of my favorite literary magazines, Turkoslavia, will read from Tatjana Gromača’s novella Black, newly translated. Roman Kostovski, a translator, musician, and publisher of Plamen Press, that specializes in books in translation from Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe (and published Aylisli’s PEOPLE AND TREES), might perform some music as well as read! Greg Bergstein, my fellow St. Petersburgian who takes inspiration from both James Joyce and Daniil Kharms might read one of his fictions.

***

In other news, check out Lina Turygina’s essay “Thinking Reeds and Foolish Weeds: On Emigration and Adaptation.” In it, Turygina (a Harvard Ph.D. student!) compares my stories with the work of Nina Berberova (!!!) –an iconic writer of the first wave of Russian emigration. “Navigating her position as a bicultural writer, Zilberbourg moves fluidly between languages, omitting details in one version, using grammar creatively in another, and always finding new ways to adapt.” My next story is going to have to feature the burdock plant — I have so many associations!

***

As some of you know, in the 60s and 70s, my dad was in a popular student rock band in Leningrad, “The Green Ants.” They performed at his university and also toured the country in the summers as a part of student work brigades.

The members of the band worked with difficult teens in Karelia, built an oil pipeline in Kazakhstan, worked on railway construction, entertained locals at a restaurant on the Kola peninsula, and at nights played rock shows, bringing Western music to Soviet audiences. They also composed their own songs and fell in love and got in trouble with authorities over set lists. Playing rock music in the USSR meant making their own electric guitars, “borrowing” amplifiers from official organizations, and creatively adapting material for approval by the censorship bureaus.

Recently, my parents started taking creative writing classes and transformed my dad’s oral stories about the band into a novel WHEN ROCK-N-ROLL WAS GREEN. The book is now available for sale in Russian–look for it wherever books are sold. And if you’re in San Francisco, come to the presentation at the Richmond Library on Sunday, January 11 at 2 pm. (In Russian language, mostly. I expect songs!)

One last good thing for today: a tiny, three-paragraph-long essay on my recent reading helped me win Jewish Book Council’s Jewish Book Month & The Bet­sy Hotel Writer’s Con­test (scroll for the essay) — and later this year, I’ll be spending a few days at the Betsy Hotel in Miami, working on my new novel.